Information on knowledge, perception and vulnerability to stroke among the general population may be a useful tool in designing appropriate stroke prevention strategies. The middle-aged regarded as stroke most-at-risk group appears not to have received significant attention in stroke prevention studies, particularly in Nigeria.

The knowledge, perception about causes and level of vulnerability to stroke among middle-aged Nigerians resident in South-Eastern region of the country were assessed.

Cross-sectional study of 550 (female = 313 and male = 237) Nigerians mean age 48.9 ± 6.5years resident in the five states constituting the Southeastern Nigeria geopolitical zone. Stroke RiskometerTM was used to assess the vulnerability to stroke while a modified version of Yoon’s Questionnaire was used to evaluate the knowledge and perception of stroke.

Four hundred and forty-three (80.5%) of the respondents obtained a score range of 1-5 on the Stroke RiskometerTM indicating low vulnerability while 1 (0.2%) obtained a score of 61-100 indicating a very high vulnerability to stroke. Majority 274 (49.8%) obtained a score 34-67% on the knowledge scale indicating a fair level of knowledge and 136 (24.7%) obtained 68-100% indicating good level of knowledge of stroke. The perception about the causes of stroke was relatively fair with 240 (43.6%) scoring between 68 and 100% indicating good perception, although some respondents 42 (7.6%) scored 0%.

Vulnerability to stroke was generally low, increased with age with males more vulnerable and with fair knowledge about stroke.

KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTION AND VULNERABILITY TO STROKE AMONG MIDDLE-AGED NIGERIANS RESIDENT IN SOUTH-EASTERN NIGERIA